10. Gary ClailEnd Of The Century Party

I was at college with a friend who introduced me to African Head Charge, Dub Syndicate, and Bim Sherman. He got me into this album. There’s something about what On-U Sound make explicit, which is that dub is the counterculture speaking. Dub is always the unofficial version of events. Popular music is by cultural position, right at the bottom of the pile. Even when I’ll go and do something in an art gallery, and people want to make a film about what’s on the walls, I’ll suggest a song like ‘Absolute Beginners’, but they want Debussy on the soundtrack, or library classical. Because it’s looked down upon and not taken seriously. What you want at the Tate is people making paintings to Elvis.

‘Two Thieves and a Liar’ has depth and space with a type of darkness that brings the gloom. He’s talking about banking and profit making, business and the square mile: ‘the con men come and try to have us over / selling us shares that we already own.’ It fits into the old school roots reggae idea of Exodus that ends at the death of the false prophet.There was an exhibition of images of John The Baptist at the National Gallery and it would have been a great thing to have seen these European paintings of John The Baptist, and Old Testament prophets exhibited to a dub soundtrack. When I was an altar boy, because I was a bit academic, and I used to draw Jesus quite well. Father Devaney said to me that I was an ideal candidate to become to be a Priest. What a terrible thing to suggest to a teenager. Can you imagine it?